


every heart to love will come

by Sour_Idealist



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Also Other Kinds, F/M, Oral Sex, Sexual Exploration/Discovery, Wedding Night Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 17:37:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8904904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: After every wedding comes a wedding night.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laulan](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laulan/gifts).



> Hello, stranger! Happy Yuletide. Uh, here's some smut. With feelings! I hope this is amenable to you. 
> 
> Warnings for discussion of past abuse (as in canon).

Csethiro had put a great deal of thought and planning into her wedding night.

It wasn’t only her, of course. She had had very little view of the small army who had choreographed not only her wedding, but the wedding party’s journey to the Untheilian, the time at which she and Maia would depart it for the Alcethmeret, who would accompany them to the iron grilles, what few persons would be allowed to continue for any distance beyond. Her edocharai would wait in the Alcethmeret alongside Maia’s, and would divest her of their layers and their work, the clouds of Imperial white to which she was entitled for the first time.

Kiru Athmaza would attend on Maia, while Telimezh would guard the door. She had spoken, quietly, to Esaran, and to Kiru, and to Csevet, as she suspected Maia had also done, and so other preparations had been made as well: Maia’s bed would be dressed in heavy, dark curtains through which no shape could be seen and whose folds would swallow sounds. Provisions had been made, though she did not know the details, so that she and Maia could see each other within that secret place; and, perhaps best of all, Csevet had procured from the Clocksmith’s Guild a magnificent wound box which played music on tiny, chiming bells. The music itself was nothing of note, but nor was it painful to hear – and it was loud enough to drown out any sound that escaped the swallowing clutches of the curtains.

All practical provisions had been made. And yet on the night of the wedding Maia was far too pale, half-buried in his regalia as he had not seemed since those first dreadful weeks after his coronation, before they were betrothed, when Csethiro still believed he was easy prey for liars. He did not stumble in their dances – she was no poor teacher, and he was as quick a student at this as at anything, and touched with something of his grandfather’s grace – but he moved with a stiffness that only she, of all the court, knew he could shed.

“Thou needst not dance with me,” she said to him, under the cover of soaring violins, and his fingers tightened on her hands.

“No – no,” he said, swallowing, “I would not – I am glad to dance.” His eyes were still huge and striking in his face, like a child’s, but the weight of his grip did not seem like a politeness.

“Then let us dance, husband,” she said, liking – for all of her – the curl of the word in her mouth, at least the way it curled when it meant Maia Drazhar, Edrehasivar VII, the goblin emperor.

At last the midnight hour struck, and in the choruses of a great deal of fuss that faded into the background like the roaring of a river, Maia Drazhar and Csethiro Drazharan made their way to the high metal grilles of the Alcethmerat and in to Maia’s own quarters. Csethiro would reside in the Alcethmeret; the quarters next to these would be her own.

(An empress did not need to live at her husband’s side; it was not considered a shirking of the duties of a wife to keep her rooms as far away in the palace as might be the far side of a city. By contrast, in the days of Edrevenivar the Conqueror, certain cavaliers swore to their various lieges to act almost as an emperor’s nohecharis, to always be, if not present, within call.)

Csethiro and Maia parted at a connecting door; their edocharai would strip them down in all modest privacy, and return them to each other so that they could share each other’s bed.

Maia cleared his throat, holding the door open with one hand. “Perhaps,” he said, looking at Csethiro’s edocharai, then to his own, “a robe, for each of us, would be… good. We wish to share a hot drink with our bride, before we retire.” The second _we_ he used was plural. His gaze flicked up to Csethiro’s face, then away. He bit his lip.

“A lovely idea,” Csethiro said, making her voice as soft as she could. “We thank you.”

After a long while, Csethiro escaped her edocharai to the sitting room outside Maia’s bedchamber. Maia had had a samovar brought up to the fireside, and two chairs were pulled next to the fire. Kiru Athmaza stood by the wall, quiet, absent; Telimezh was with her still. Maia’s feet peeped out from the edge of his robe, not shod in slippers; his toes curled and uncurled against the carpet. She had never seen his feet before; nor had she particularly thought of it. Few but the Emperor’s closest, in fact, would ever have reason to see the Emperor’s bare and dance-battered feet.

Csethiro shook off the foolishness of the thought and crossed the chamber, settling into her chair. Her robe was tied but loosely around her, an artful looseness that she immediately dislodged in accepting a mug of tea from her new husband.

“It is chamomile,” he said, gently. “I am fond of it, and it is said to be soothing to the nerves.”

Csethiro took a long, slow sip. “I thank thee for it,” she said, licking the heat off of her lips. “It is… much simpler than the feast.”

“My mother drank it often,” Maia said. “My cousin, Osmer Nelar… he did not approve.”

Csethiro bit back on the tightening of her lips, lest Maia think it anything but disapproval of – hatred for – what she had heard of Setheris Nelar.

“It is good,” she said. “I have a great fondness for a rose hip tisane, myself. And mint.”

“I do not believe I have had mint,” Maia said. “I shall have to ask that it be served in the mornings sometimes, now.”

“I thank thee,” Csethiro said again, and drank deeper of the tea, a smiling curling up around the edges of the drink. This marriage of alliance did not need to be, was not bound to be, the same sharing of days and meals and burdens that marriage meant to most of the kingdom, but Csethiro could fulfill more than the barest minimum of this worthy duty. And would.

“The Alcethmerat is lovely,” she said. “I knew, of course, but it is strange to think that I shall grow to know it so well.”

“I still feel as if I do not know it so well as I might,” he confessed, turning his mug between his hands. “Far less than I ever knew Edonomee, or even Isvaroë.”

“I doubt,” Csetherio said, “there was more worth knowing at Edonomee than could fit into this room. And far less, now that thou are not there.”

“The servants were kind, sometimes,” Maia said, flushing.

“Kind?” Csethiro raised an eyebrow. Maia coughed.

“Motherly,” he said, “in passing. And the cook advised me, now and then, on the marshes, or… on whether Setheris had been drinking.”

“Ah.” Their chairs were set close enough, by the fire, that Csethiro could reach slowly out and settle her hand on his arm; he did not flinch away, or even startle, but only glanced down at her fingers and smiled as he lifted his face to hers.

“Thy scent is lovely,” he said, and paused, a darker flush rising on the delicate silver of his cheeks. “That is to say, the scent thou art wearing. Is it a rare one?”

“Far from it,” Csethiro said. “It is a traditional one, made on our lands, and often considered overly simple. I argued that a simple scent is appropriate for a holy day, and besides, that it was only fitting that I come to thee in the scent of our lands as I brought thee the loyalty of our house.”

Maia bit his lip, inhaling, and met her eyes. “If thou brought only thy own loyalty,” he said, sounding the words out as if they might break in his mouth, “and no other wealth, and no other power, I should still consider myself a fortunate man indeed.” He settled his hand over hers.

Csethiro swallowed, twice, against the sudden heat in her throat. It was a foolish bit of flattery, a preposterous thing for an emperor to say – but Maia was no flatterer, and the court was full of stories about how he said, and meant, and did, preposterous things for an emperor to do or mean or say. And so perhaps he did indeed consider her own loyalty a gift all independent of the strength and power of her house.

“I thank thee,” she said, dry and pathetic in her mouth, but Maia smiled, and it occurred to her that perhaps it was only just that she should be fumble-tongued before him in her turn. She turned her hand over, interlacing their fingers, in lieu of any better words.

Maia made a soft, low noise, one she would not have heard from even a little space further away; she looked at him, and he looked away.

“What disturbs thee?” she asked, quiet enough, she hoped, that his nohecharai would not catch it.

“Nothing. That is – nothing of significance. It is a foolishness, no more.”

“Thy foolishnesses,” Csethiro said, “have a way, I think, of becoming great things. A miraculous bridge, for example.”

“That is one foolishness,” Maia said, still flushing. Csethiro wanted to raise a hand to his cheek, trace that dark shadowed smudge, but even bound by marriage she did not quite yet dare, and besides, her right hand was still intertwined with his. “I – we are dressed for bed,” he said, using the plural, “and so my hands… do not look like those of an emperor.”

“Well, then surely neither do mine look like those of an empress.”

Maia raised his eyes to hers again. “Thy hands look more suited to an empress than mine to an emperor, even so.”

Csethiro looked back down to their hands, where her moon-pale fingers intertwined with his: the soft grey of mountain-stone.

It took her a long, slow breath before she shifted, taking his hand in both of hers.

“Thou art an emperor,” she said, gathering all the fire of years into her voice, “and a better emperor than this viperous court deserves, and thus thy hands shall always look like the hands of an emperor, and thy skin the skin of an emperor, and so thy eyes and thy hair and thy – all that thou art is that of an emperor, because thou _art_ an emperor, not only in crown but in truth. Thou carest for every soul in the Elflands as a woodsman to his trees, as a father to his children, and would see none wasted or set aside. Thou art an emperor who heroes might be proud to serve.”

Maia closed his eyes, and with a cold shock Csethiro saw tears dampening his lashes as he did. One tear beaded there, and spilled its slow trail across his cheek.

“I am sorry,” Csethiro said, and now she did pull her hand loose to brush the water away – not tenderly, exactly, but with the most surgical precision she could manage. “I did not wish to upset thee.”

“Thou didst not,” Maia said, hoarse, and caught her hand again in his. “I… I thank thee, Csethiro. It is kind of thee to say.”

“It is true of me to say,” she said, too sharply for a woman who meant to be comforting a husband, but then she was a sharp woman, and she thought that Maia knew.

Maia drew in a long, slow, shaky breath, and slowly lifted her hand, turning it over. He brushed a kiss to her palm, light as the landing of a butterfly, and another at the base of her wrist, where the veins showed distinct through the skin. She could not quite hold back a shiver; it was as if her skin came alive, searching for every detail of the touch. Slowly, he lifted his head, with the soft uncertain look she recognized. She curled her fingers over her palm as if she could catch that first kiss.

“Thou art,” Maia said softly, “very beautiful, and of course, I am glad that it is thee that I have married. However, I… it has been a long day, and would it, truly, make the consummation less sacred if we were to wait a while?”

Csethiro dropped her eyes to her mug of tea, slowly. At the corner of her sight she saw Maia leaning in, teeth worrying at his lip.

“I… do not know what may make a thing less sacred,” she said slowly, “but it may be seen, whether…” She felt her ears twitch. “Whether a bed has borne the consummation of a marriage, by those who clear the sheets away, and those who wash them, and those who see… and so people may draw conclusions. I would not see thee subject to the rumors that would come from such a thing.”

“Ah,” Maia said softly, and Csethiro raised her gaze.

“And I think a delay might only give us both more time to be afraid,” she said, with all the boldness that had made her send her half-known, lonely betrothed a letter about dueling that would have caused other emperors to set her aside. Maia’s ears dipped in turn, but rose again before she could wince. His slow nod gave her the courage to say, stiffer than she meant: “And I do like thee.”

The tiny ghost of a smile visited Maia’s mouth, and faded, incompletely. “I see,” he said. “I hope thou did not think I did not like thee too.”

“I did not,” Csethiro said, and dared again to raise her thumb to the still-upturned corner of his mouth. He settled his fingers against her wrist, not as if to pull her away but only as if to caress her in return; his fingers, one pen-callused, were as gentle as his mouth against her skin.

“So,” she said, her eyes steady on him, and his on her. “Wishest thou for us to risk the rumors, and our own fears? Or shall we retire?”

“Thou hast made a fine argument,” Maia said, and stood, drawing her along – and close – with his fingers on her wrist. She could, likely, have pulled away; she suspected very much that she was stronger than him, as all the exercise he seemed to take was his occasional riding. She did not try. “Let us retire.”

Telimezh remained behind them; Kiru Athmaza stood, silent as a whisper. Csethiro saw they both smiled, Kiru’s softly fond, Telimezh’s, she thought, a smile he would have cleared from his face if he had realized it was there. She flushed, but linked her arm through Maia’s and led him through the unfamiliar steps up to his bedchamber.

The curtains of his bed were already drawn; he held one of them aside for her with awkward courtesy, and so she slipped through its layers and froze, caught up with one foot still trailing off the bed.

The intricate carvings of the bed held, it seemed, dozens of places, in the pillars and the headboard, where candles in small glass shells had been set. Their light created a soft and well-shadowed glow, still bright enough to see, and softer and warmer by far than anything a gaslight might shed. The light flickered, rippled like water, as Maia slid onto the bed beside her and let the drapery fall closed.

“Art well?” he asked, touching her fingers. Csethiro flushed, pulling her knees onto the bed, until she was settled on one hip. Maia sat cross-legged, as certain books in the library said the Barizheise did to meditate.

“I am,” she said. “Only… startled.”

“So too was I,” Maia confessed, “though I had some idea how it might appear. It is like… like an enchanted pavilion in a wonder-tale.”

She looked for that charcoal blush, and smiled to see it was not there to be found. “It is,” she said, and reached out to tangle her fingers in his hair.

Even to her, the bed seemed spacious; it possibly in truth was, she thought, the size of a soldier’s tent. It seemed they had all the space in the world, as they leaned in to each other, two tiny figures under the high velvet.

Maia’s mouth was dry and gentle and soft, and he did not pull away when his nose bumped hers. Csethiro tilted her head, trying to adjust, and his hand settled on her shoulder. His mouth opened, or maybe hers opened first, but they stayed close. Csethiro, having found a few novels of high adventure which described several kinds of conquest, tried tracing her tongue along his lip. It seemed awkward and overmuch, clumsy; Maia echoed her, more hesitantly, and she thought that smaller touch seemed wiser. She tried it too.

When they drew back, neither of them was breathing steadily.

“I ought to tell thee,” Csethiro said, trying to catch her breath, “first.” Maia’s hand was still on her shoulder; his fingers distinct through the thin silk of her nightgown; his thumb brushed a hesitant arc along the bare skin of her throat. It was, to say the least, distracting.

“What must thou tell me?” Maia asked. The hoarseness of his voice left her feeling less overwhelmed by her own breathlessness; at least she was not alone in it.

“No one thing,” Csethiro said, clearing her throat. “Only… I gathered that Edonomee did not offer thee, or any, opportunity for… dalliance.” She swallowed. “Nor, I think, art thou one who would… dally, easily, with those of thy household, or any whose lives fell so intimately under thy protection. Those who fell _only_ under thy protection.”

“I would not,” Maia said, not only accepting but unhesitating, so that she caught his hand upon her shoulder and held it tight.

“Most who say such a thing to thee,” she said, “who stand in front of thee and say it, will mean only to imply that thou art less a man than those who do take their chambermaids to bed. Be cautious.”

Maia’s sigh rolled not only through her body but through his hands to her. “I feared so,” he said. “It may even be so in Barizhan, but it would not have been so in any household of my mother’s.”

“And so not in thine,” Csethiro said, nodding. “This lies aside my point. What I mean to say is – considering this was likely, I considered, also, that Setheris Nelar was not…” She searched for the tactful word, and into the space Maia made a soft, embarrassed sound, like someone who had begun clearing his throat and stopped halfway.

“I know,” he said, “how one may get a bastard on a serving-woman, or rather, what one must not do so as to father no bastards on serving-women. I suppose legitimate heirs are not gotten so differently, but…”

“I see,” Csethiro said. “I suspected it might be so, and so I… spoke to those women I knew who had married, those I trusted. And a few I know, and trust, who… do not plan to marry. I spoke to them, not only of how one gets children, but how it may be made pleasant, both for the woman and for the man. And of how pleasure may be achieved without the getting of children, should… that be desired. As it may be, sometimes, even between a husband and wife.”

Maia opened and closed his mouth, twice. “Ah,” he finally said.

Csethiro forged ahead, trying at least to keep her ears from pinning to her head. Fighting a flush was a losing battle. “I… tried what I could, of this knowledge, of what a woman may do with her own body,” and twice, tried what women could do with their own mouths and specifically-dimensioned vegetables, but _that_ she did not intend to discuss, “but, I swear to thee, though I know what I can, I come a virgin to thy bed.”

“Csethiro,” Maia said, softly, “I do not seek to cast thee aside. I would not have asked from where they knowledge came, nor blamed thee had the answer been otherwise.”

“I know!” The sharpness in Csethiro’s voice surprised her, and for all her training in the ways of court she could not do more than keep it quiet. “I know this. I know _thee._ I think that thou wouldst hesitate to cast me aside if I had spent the months of our betrothal taking to bed every man of the court in order of name. But there are few enough ways that we may bring honor to our husbands,” she said. “I may not duel those who call thee unfit, lead no wars for thee, bring home no lost treasures or tokens of conquest to lay at thy feet. An I did, it would be seen not as honor to thee, but as shame to both of us. But –” She inhaled. “This, I may do. In this one thing, I may do thee honor in a way that would be called honor by those who would be glad to see thee shamed. It has nothing to do with whether thou would hesitate to be the second man between my legs,” she said. “Any gift or honor that the world will let me grant thee, I shall. And so I come a virgin to thy bed.”

Maia’s eyes were wide and shining in the candlelight, by the time that she was done, and when the seconds of silence stretched out he pulled her close to him, his mouth close and passionate on hers. Csethiro met him, heat for heat, bunching her fingers in the soft silk of his nightshirt. He broke the kiss only to pull her closer, and she leaned in and kissed the long, stretched-out tendon on the side of his neck that she had occasionally seen him rub. He caught his breath, sighing, and she did it again.

“Might I, too?” Maia whispered, pulling back. It took her a moment to follow, but she pulled back, tilting her head to bare her throat. Even the first careful touch of his mouth made her shiver.

“Try to bite, a little,” she murmured. “Or to suck at the skin – ah!” It made her shift her hips against the bed, catching her breath; heat sparked under her skin.

When Maia pulled back, he looked shyly pleased with himself.

“What else hast thou learned of?” he asked her, and Csethiro took a moment to gather her thoughts.

“This,” she said, and ran her fingers over his knee where it escaped the folds of his nightshirt, seeking out the thin soft skin on the inside of his thigh. He hissed in the shadows; the skin jumped under her fingers. Slowly she ran her finger up his thigh and down again, up and down, adding a faint trace of her fingernails the second time. He licked his lips, and slowly reached out, tracing a similar slow line between her breasts, which her nightgown left partially bare and framed in lace. Her fingers dug into his thigh a little sharper than she had meant; he only smiled and moved to cup one breast, still gentle.

“Is this right?” he asked, tracing a thumb in a circle over her areola, where the thinness of the silk was rapidly becoming apparent. Csethiro nodded, biting her lip.

“Yes,” she said, “gentle. Tis good.” Slowly, she leaned in to kiss him again.

By the time they broke the kiss, both their nightclothes were in no little disarray, and Csethiro tugged at the edges of his nightshirt with intent, this time. It took him a moment, and then he swallowed and looked away.

“Thou as well?” he asked, finding the tiny pearl buttons on the front of her nightgown.

“Yes,” she said, “an thou wills it.”

“Of _course,”_ he said, “I told thee, thou art lovely,” and with that he had the buttons undone.

“I am not,” she said, swallowing. “Not poor to look upon, perhaps, but not lovely. Thou needst not flatter me.”

“Lovely enough,” he said simply. “I believe thee to be so, truly. And –” Here he unfastened another button, and found the top end of a long, ragged scar, puckered with stitching. Csethiro closed her eyes, and felt the touch of his fingers, exploratory and gentle.

“I hope that no one hurt thee?” he asked. He did not sound appalled.

“It was foolish,” she said. “I learned… elements of the sword, as surely thou guessed, from many people and in many places, and sometimes from men who did not know how to safely teach the craft. He was quite horrified, when he saw that he had cut me.”

“Wast thou badly hurt?” He had traced the scar down over her ribs, now, gentle and slow.

“Only shallowly,” she said. “It took stitches from the family doctor, but I could bribe him to keep his silence.” At his questioning look, she explained, “My teacher had only done as I begged him to do. I could hardly let him come to trouble.”

“And thou kept it secret?” he asked, finally finding the end of the scar just over her hip. “Truly?”

“Of course not the scar,” she said. “But no seamstress or servant has ever reported it to my father, or if they have, he has not spoken of it to me. And yes, I managed to hide that I had been hurt from all but the doctor and my edocharo, who knew a great deal of what I did anyway.”

“It looks… painful,” Maia said. His fingers were not still; they kept up a slow trace over the ridge and bump of the scar, from her hip to her ribs and back.

“It was,” she said, “and now it is unsightly –”

“I do not think it is unsightly,” Maia said, his mouth dropping close against her ear. “Truly. It is… it is fascinating.”

Csethiro flushed, high unsightly blots, but Maia’s fingers did not seem like flattery, rubbing that slow pressure against the edge of the scar.

“Well,” she said. “It was painful, and irritating, and made it dreadfully unpleasant to try and learn to play the lap-harp, which is probably why I am rubbish at it, but Nelis – the man who cut me – taught me several good blocks before it happened.” She licked her lips; it was harder and harder to think, with Maia’s fingers on her skin, his eyes wide and grey and _listening._ “It was the end of the lessons from him, of course.”

“Doubtless he was afraid to harm thee worse,” Maia said. “Does it pain thee still?”

“No, no, it was not so deep as that,” she reassured him. “It only pierced the skin, nothing deeper. Had I not kept it secret, doubtless it would have had plentiful creams applied to it, and it would not even be so… distinct now.”

“Ah,” Maia said. His hand tightened, a little, over her hip.

“Thou _likest_ it? Truly?” she asked, stroking her fingers along his thigh again, in vengeance. Maia nodded.

“Tis strange, I know,” he said, “but, truly. I like thee. I like thy… thy spirit, and that thou found men to teach thee to swordfight, and that thou couldst say nothing of it to anyone whilst thou tried to play the lap-harp. I am pleased to know the story of it. And I like thy… it is fitting. It suits thee.”

Csethiro laughed, slow and delighted, and to her relief Maia only smiled back at her and did not flinch away. He knew she would not laugh like that, if she laughed at him, and so she leaned up to kiss him instead. Maia’s other hand cupped her cheek.

“We were about something, I think,” she said, drawing back, and reached for the soft, loose laces on the sleeves of his nightshirt. Maia flushed, and she paused.

“Is’t true, then?” she asked. “I had heard that thou were… scarred.”

“Oh, goddesses,” Maia said, covering his face with his hand. Csethiro caught at his wrist.

“It is not – it is not a thing said by those who speak ill of thee,” she said. “Vedero told me – we speak familiarly, between us. I do not know where she had heard it, but I doubt it was from anyone who wished thee ill, or who… told her for any reason except that she might understand thee better.”

“That is… truly the whole of the story?” Maia asked.

“Well.” Csethiro bit her lip. “That is the most I know of it, and the story that is detailed. Others have – wondered, at the treatment of Setheris Nelar, have claimed thou art ungrateful, and those who are loyal to thee have answered that Setheris Nelar was – deeply unfit to have the care of any child. That _is_ the whole of the story.”

“Ah.” Maia looked away. “I… well. There are no secrets of court.”

“It does not reflect poorly on thee,” Csethiro said softly, “to be kind and compassionate after years in the care of a man who was neither. Thou art not responsible for those who had power over thee. _I_ would see him in the Nevennamire, and left to rot there.”

“Thou needst not… thou needst not defend me so,” Maia said, but he reached to the laces of his sleeves. “Setheris has done his duties well, since we returned. And his wife loves him.”

“That does little to recommend him to me,” Csethiro said, mouth set.

“She was shocked by what she learned of Edonomee,” Maia explained, softly. “I do not think… he might have done well, with the care of his own child.”

“I do not care,” Csethior said sharply. “Thou didst not deserve mistreatment, and whatever he _might_ have done, what he has done is… monstrous.”

“Perhaps.” Maia’s smile was soft and sad. “Well. Let us speak no more of him, for – I should hope – that thou, as I, would rather he had as little to do with this as may be.”

Csethiro felt her eyes fly wide, and then she caught the dry edge to Maia’s voice and laughed. “Indeed,” she said. “Enough of him, then.” Gently, she reached for the laces on his other arm, and helped him shed the layers of linen.

The scar was an ugly thing: a swirl of jagged lines, with the curl of a leaf like a brand over his wrist, but Csethiro dragged her gaze from it. Maia was long-limbed, slender, with sharply defined collarbones that she wanted, instinctively to trace. If he had been interested before – as she thought he had been – his interest had flagged, but surely the grimness of the topic made that only natural.

“And thou,” Maia said, interrupting, and eased her nightgown off her shoulders. This made it rather clumsy, easing it down over her legs in the enclave of the bed, and she flushed, but when she looked up Maia was smiling.

“So,” he said. “Here we are.”

“Here we are indeed,” Csethiro said, and reached out to kiss him again.

It was different, now, skin against skin; his hands were cool and his body warm, and she had never in her life felt so much of someone else pressed up against her. The planes of his back were very different without the fabric in the way, and the smoky warmth of the air seemed to lie heavier on her bare skin.

Slowly Maia leaned back, pulling her down with him; Csethiro shivered as his hands explored her thighs, not venturing between them yet. She could feel his interest rise again, the pressure of his manhood – penis – _cock,_ she decided. The pressure of his cock against her thigh. The barracks language of it seemed suitable, sent a thrill through the center of her when she thought it, and she neither wished to analyze his anatomy nor to spend this time fretting over the _flower of her maidenhood,_ which phrase had always made her want to strangle a poet. His cock it was, and her cunt hot and tender and longing for pressure.

“What hast thou learned, then?” Maia asked, fear and daring mingled in his voice. “What might we do?”

Csethiro licked her lips. “Mayest I show thee?”

“Of course.” Maia loosened his grip on her, though it had already been loose enough that she could have pulled free. “What should I do?”

“Just lay back.” Slowly, she inched herself down the bed, and down his body, dropping a kiss to his collarbone, to his stomach, to the bone of his right hip, before she found herself at eye level with his cock. It did not look like a crude drawing. It looked like a part of him, swelling, purple-grey and dark at the tip, with the long crooked line of a vein. She ran a finger down the length of him and found the skin velvety, and before she could lose her nerve she followed her finger with the tip of her tongue.

“How is’t?” she asked. “How does it feel?”

“Good,” Maia breathed. “Please – again – if thou wishest,” and Csethiro smiled and repeated the action. It all turned sloppy quickly, saliva dripping into the clusters of hair at the base of his cock, the wetness gathering and shining at the tip. When Csethiro licked there, it was salty and startling, and she gathered her courage and stretched her mouth over the tip to suck on it as if it were an ice.

Maia whimpered, and when she glanced up she saw, over the foreshortened planes of his stomach, that he was biting the back of his hand.

“Good,” he said again, muffled. “Oh. That is – astonishing.”

Csethiro smiled as best she could with her unusual mouthful, and did it again.

After a time, while Maia shivered under her skin and made soft overwhelmed sounds that curled themselves slick and hot under Maia’s skin, she pulled back.

“I might bring thee to thy pleasure, like this,” she said, “or so I am told, but not – no children will be thus begotten, and I am not sure it counts as a consummation.”

“I see,” Maia said, licking his lips, his cock still hard and shining now between them. “What – may I – might the same be done to thee?”

“I am told,” Csethiro said. “Wishest thou?”

“Yes.” Maia raised a thumb, carefully, to her mouth, as if her lips were now a powerful thing. “An thou wilt?”

“ _Please,_ ” she said, thinking of the heat between her legs, and stared at the space between them for a contemplative moment before she rolled over onto her back. Maia sat up, and, hesitantly, she spread her legs, fighting a flush. She did not know what she looked like, but Maia’s eyes were wide and fascinated, gazing at her. Slowly, he shifted his weight between her legs, bracing his hands against her thighs, and lowered his head to her cunt, to flick his tongue quickly against the folds there. It was a short, fleeting touch, before he lifted his head.

“Is that…”

“Rougher, I think,” she said, “and longer, and – _more._ An thou wilt.”

“I will,” setting his jaw, and ducked his head again. This time she got a long slow trail of his tongue, along the folds of her body, and she shivered as he had.

“Like that?” he asked.

“ _Yes,_ ” she said, trying not to shove her hips up towards him again.

He ducked his head again and let her link her legs over his shoulders, as if to keep him, let her write and whimper with the pressure of his tongue. She gasped for “more,” and “higher,” and “there, there – underneath – _there_ ,” as he explored and as the muscles in her thighs tensed and tensed, her fingers digging into the mattress, until suddenly she arched from the bed, gasping, and felt the tension in her spine fall like an exhalation, like a breaking wave.

Her fingers loosened in Maia’s hair, and he lifted his head, raising a tender hand to his scalp. His mouth shone, and the sight of it caught at her breath.

“Did I hurt thee?” she asked.

“Not – not to matter,” he said. “Less than I fear I shall hurt thee.”

“Thou hast hurt me not at all, so far,” she said. “Quite the opposite.”

He flushed. “Was that – must we not tonight after all, then? Or must we wait? If thou hast reached thy pleasure – I didn’t know –”

“Women may take ours twice, more quickly,” Csethiro said, and ran her fingers gently through his hair again. “Or – thy pleasure only is _necessary,_ for the conception of a child. If I do not have mine again, during the – that part of it, ‘tis no matter.”

“I say it matters,” Maia said, with the mulish look she had come to know, and Csethiro could not hold back smiling with the tenderness that flowed through her.

“A climax apiece seems a fair bargain, for tonight,” she said. “We are both new at it, after all. Surely?”

“Perhaps,” Maia said slowly, and reached up to run a finger over his lips. “Thou hast a… thou tastest like nothing I have ever tasted.”

“Not bad, I hope?” Csethiro asked, letting her thighs fall closer together in sudden shyness. But Maia shook his head.

“Like salt,” he said, “and sourness – not a foul one – and… like I know not what.”

“I tasted mostly salt, with thee,” she admitted, and bit back a laugh at the startled way Maia glanced down at himself.

“Perhaps we are not so unalike, then,” he said, and slowly, wrapped a hand around his cock, as if to add a finishing touch to his body. Carefully, Csethiro raised her knee, and reached out to his hips, pulling him in. He braced himself on one elbow, and then she closed her eyes and waited. His fingers brushed against her, uncertain and exploratory; she shifted her legs further apart, and then pressure and pleasure and pain jolted into her all at once. She groaned.

Maia froze immediately, breath hitching. “Did I hurt thee?”

This being no time for complicated answers, Csethiro dug her fingers into his hips and hissed “Keep going.”

Slowly, he obeyed; the pain of it did not lessen, but neither did the shivering want; it hurt like the stretch of an overextended arm in a passionate bout, in a way like and not at all like the soreness of muscles after a long workout – the push of him into her hurt, but she would not, _could_ not, have him stop. Had no wish for him to stop, as she locked her legs around his thighs, holding him trapped, and he gasped in an irregular staccato.

She was almost surprised when he slumped against her, a handful of strokes in. He kissed her cheek, gathering his breath.

“Art well?” he asked, and she inhaled.

“I believe so,” she said. She thought she might have found another moment of climax, if she chose to pursue it, but Maia was shivering and soft in her arms, and she did not need it as she had needed the first.

“I thought – it seemed that thou wert in pain,” he said, quietly, reaching out to twine a strand of her hair between his fingers. “Wilt forgive me?”

“What for?” Csethiro asked. “I told thee to continue.”

“Yes, but –” He tugged at the lock of her hair, not painfully. “I would not have thou endure me.”

“It was a – it wasn’t only pain,” she said, tracing a small circle on his back. She shivered again. “Maia, could we make use of the blankets?”

“Of course,” he said, and there was a scramble of limbs and velvet before they managed to burrow themselves underneath everything. Hiding under the blankets, they stared at each other, and there was a moment of lingering silence before Csethiro began to laugh.

“Wouldst thou come here?” she asked. “Surely, if we can hold each other while atop the bedcovers, we can do so under here.” Maia laughed faintly too, and reached out to pull her close. She was increasingly aware of the wet, messy weight between her thighs, and increasingly aware that she had not thought about the mechanics of afterwards much, but she thought that was perhaps the secondary issue. In the meantime, she tucked her head under his chin, her cheek pressed against his chest, and smiled when he tangled his fingers in her hair.

“I would be…” Maia stopped. “I would be considerate. I would not have thee be in pain.”

“Thou _art_ considerate,” she insisted, pulling back enough to glare at him.

“Then I wish to be considerate _effectively,”_ Maia said, setting his jaw; it startled a laugh out of Csethiro.

“It will come with practice,” she said. Maia blinked.

“Practice,” he repeated.

“Why not? It is a – a skill, I suppose, or at least, a motion of the body and the self. I don’t see why it shouldn’t get easier as it goes on, just as dancing or swordcraft or horsemanship become easier as one learns the motions of it.” Thoughtfully, she added, “Perhaps we ought to have started with exercises.”

“ _Are_ there exercises?” Maia asked – well, squeaked slightly.

“There might be, I suppose?” Csethiro said. “I doubt the courtesans of Cetho all come to the pleasure-houses rich in experience. On the other hand, I suspect they would be embarrassing.” When she glanced up, Maia was as dark-flushed as shadows at midnight, and so she desisted.

“Perhaps the work of one’s mouth constitutes an exercise?” he offered. “Which we might practice.” Into her hair, he said “I liked that. All of it, both what thou offered me and – what thou let me offer thee. And it was less worrisome.”

“It is unfruitful,” Csethiro said.

“I imagined,” Maia said, a little dryly. “Surely we have managed the formalities now? Not to set aside the – the matter of an heir entirely, but surely we can take a few weeks to – to practice, as thou sayest, and to learn each other. If nothing has taken root tonight.”

Csethiro touched her stomach, startled anew by the thought. Of course, that was the purpose of all this, but to truly imagine a child, an heir, a joining of her and Maia taking shape inside of her already… her body felt like a new world, tonight.

“I think thou art right,” she said. “There are… I know a few more things, and I have ideas.” She yawned, sudden and jaw-cracking. “I hope thou hast no plans to send me to another bedchamber tonight, for thou art far too warm for me to be easily persuaded.” She burrowed closer to him. “And it has been a long day.”

“It has,” Maia said, swallowing what sounded like an echoing yawn. “Good night, then, Csethiro.” Softly, he kissed her forehead.

A thought caught at her attention. “Dost thou snore?”

“Do I… I haven’t the faintest idea,” Maia said. “I don’t know who would know to tell me. My nohecharai, maybe, but I cannot imagine any of them mentioning it.”

“Cala might, if thou were to ask him,” Csethiro said. “Well, I shall find out, I expect, and tell thee in the morning.”

“Suppose I fall asleep after thee,” Maia asked, toying with a strand of her hair, “and awaken before thee in the morning?”

“Then I shall require thee to go back to bed,” Csethiro said, “because thou wilt have slept far too little for thy health. Or my curiosity.”

Maia’s laugh was interrupted by a yawn. “The issue may not arise,” he said, and kissed her hair. “But I thank thee for thy care of me.”

Csethiro, unsure how to respond, kissed his collarbone and closed her eyes. Slowly, underneath her, Maia’s breathing evened out. If he snored, she was asleep too soon to catch it.


End file.
